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Efforts by the U.S. Labor Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to implement fiduciary standards on the investment-advice industry have slowed in recent months. Conducting cost-benefit analyses on the proposed fiduciary duties has proved to be a challenge for officials. In addition, a fiduciary duty could hurt those who serve the middle market, such as NAIFA members, NAIFA President Robert Miller said. "We're not running from regulation. There is room for intelligent regulation in the marketplace," Miller said.

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A senior adviser to departing Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro will assume the same role with Norm Champ, director of the agency's Division of Investment Management. Jennifer McHugh, who headed the SEC's fiduciary-duty study required by the Dodd-Frank Act, will advise Champ regarding advisers and mutual funds. The SEC plans to add more examiners for advisers and mutual funds next year if the budget allows, according to its 2012 Financial Report.

The Securities and Exchange Commission continues to study a fiduciary-standard proposal and plans to solicit public comments a year after the agency told Congress that brokers should meet such a standard when dealing with clients. Industry groups have welcomed the additional study. "NAIFA is encouraged by recent signals that the SEC is taking a deliberate approach and performing a detailed cost-benefit analysis on the proposed fiduciary rule," association President Robert Miller said.

Federal inheritance taxes this year apply only to estates exceeding $5 million, and possibly as low as $1 million next year. For smaller inheritances, the focus of estate planning shifts to ensuring that survivors can pay off debts, handle funeral costs and cope with future bills, writes Gregory Schwabe of First American Insurance Underwriters. A life insurance policy often can ease the process of settling the deceased's final expenses and dividing assets among family members, Schwabe writes.

Efforts by the Labor Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to impose fiduciary standards on investment advisers have slowed in recent months. Conducting cost-benefit analyses of the proposed fiduciary duties has been difficult.

Institutional investors of large funds, such as pensions and insurers, have realigned their portfolios to reflect the realities of the sovereign-debt crisis in Europe, Tom Lauricella writes. Traditional indexes of bond benchmarks no longer serve as the best guide now that formerly AAA-rated countries have been downgraded and nations such as Portugal are considered risky and volatile, Lauricella writes. Some managers have started looking more closely at each country's debt relative to gross domestic product.